I had heard that it was nearly impossible. According to the post below, it isn't.

The adcoms from HYS have been rumored to spend application cycles dealing and "trading" students before they even receive acceptance letters from any of the three schools. Not that it happens with every top student, but I can believe it. Think of the NBA or NFL GM's making deals in the weeks before the draft. If true, it would explain the difficulty of pulling off the trifecta.

Sub-topic: Who's the most phenomenal applicant you have ever seen?

One of my "favorites" is Megan Wang (2002, 3.9/176 from UCLA). She applied to 14 schools, including Harvard, Yale, Stanford, Columbia, NYU, Northwestern, Penn, Berkeley, UVA, Cornell, Georgetown, UCLA, USC, and Hastings. She is not the most phenominal I have seen, but she was pretty kick-ass, especially for an ESL student.

Only Yale and Stanford rejected her.

Her profile is in Eric Owens's book Law School Essays That Made a Difference, 2nd Ed. P. 164.

Last edited by PDaddy on Sat Jan 30, 2010 2:06 am, edited 6 times in total.

I got all three, and there's a ton of luck involved. I was a great candidate from a numbers standpoint, but beyond that not really so (state school in the southwest, straight out of ugrad, no impressive softs really). Admissions at Yale is so unpredictable that you just have to get lucky and have something on your app that catches the professor/reviewer's attention. This will generally not be the LSAT or GPA, as the professors tend to not care about that stuff very much. Harvard is very predictable, but Stanford and Yale are just arbitrary crapshoots.

njskatchmo wrote:Why wouldn't the person who gets into yale get into harvard and stanford? Transitive property

You>=Yale > Harvard > Stanford

(Obviously this is rather simplistic)

Because different schools look for slightly different qualities amongst their students. Sure, if every school was strictly based on numbers, your formula would apply, but numbers aren't 100% of what gets you in.

PDaddy wrote:I had heard that it was nearly impossible. According to the post below, it isn't.

The adcoms from HYS have been rumored to spend application cycles dealing and "trading" students before they even receive acceptance letters from any of the three schools. Not that it happens with every top student, but I can believe it. Think of the NBA or NFL GM's making deals in the weeks before the draft. If true, it would explain the difficulty of pulling off the trifecta.

Sub-topic: Who's the most phenominal applicant you have ever seen?

One of my favorites is Megan Wang (2002, 3.9/176 from UCLA). She applied to 14 schools, including Harvard, Yale, Stanford, Columbia, NYU, Northwestern, Penn, Berkeley, UVA, cornell, Georgetown, UCLA, USC, and Hastings. She is not the most phenominal I have seen, but she was pretty kick-ass.

Only Yale and Stanford rejected her.

Not to denigrate Ms. Wang, but her profile sounds similar to dozens of TLSers in this cycle alone.

By the way, I really, really doubt that HLS, YLS, and SLS conspire to "trade" students before acceptances go out.

To the OP: it's not as uncommon as you think. And that student you mentioned is not any sort of anomaly.

"Managamy"? As soon as YOU put it in. Should we post some of YOUR other typos while we wait? lol.

Let's nix the personal attacks, especially where spelling or grammar are concerned, because I typically do a pretty damn good job, and everybody makes a typo here and there.

Wang? No, not an anomaly. Just kind of hot! lol. I like hot Asian women. I said she was one of my favorites, not that she was so extraordinary Yes, there are many very good students on this site. I am one of them, as are many of you.

I didn't mean to sound, "too impressed" up above. I didn't say that it could not be done. I said it is nearly impossible. And your posts don't do anything to sway that position. I have friends who have done extremely well (ex: 8 or 9 out of the top-10).

But when you consider all of the people who apply to law school, completing that trifecta does appear to be a rare thing. The fact that you might find at one time in a particular social network a high percentage of the few students who actually manage to do it does not make it a "normal" thing.

Right now, your reasoning is flawed. It's as if you're saying the following:

"Doing the trifecta isn't that hard, we can name 20 people on TLS who have done it."

A flaw in the above passage is

a) Fails to consider the possibility that the majority of the HYS'ers are members of TLSb) Fails to consider the possibility that the sample cited is unrepresentativec) Fails to take into account the fact that TLSers don't know ALL candidatesd) Fails to consider the possibility that many law students misrepresent their admissions resultse) Fails to consider the possibility that statistics on other sites may be erroneous

Given the number of law applicants, you need to name at least 200-300 people before it becomes a "normal" thing. And, you are saying that it is not much of an anomaly, thus normal. But practically every student admitted to one of the three would have to also be admitted to the other two for that to be true.

So, show me just how, uh, normal this is.

Last edited by PDaddy on Sat Jan 30, 2010 1:09 am, edited 2 times in total.

PDaddy wrote:As soon as YOU put it in. Should we post some of YOUR typos while we wait? lol.

Let's nix the personal attacks, especially where spelling or grammar are concerned, because I typically do a pretty damn good job.

As I am sure you realized, managamy is just an excellent applicant to law school that posts on this forum.

Also, I wasn't noting your previous typo. Rather, I was harping on your idea of phenomenal students. Though I might not know Megan personally, I would like to hope with numbers of her caliber that she, too, would be considered a phenomenal student, and the fact that two of the "holy" trinity did not accept her does not and should not deter any of us from that realization.

booboo wrote:As I am sure you realized, managamy is just an excellent applicant to law school that posts on this forum.

Also, I wasn't noting your previous typo. Rather, I was harping on your idea of phenomenal students. Though I might not know Megan personally, I would like to hope with numbers of her caliber that she, too, would be considered a phenomenal student, and the fact that two of the "holy" trinity did not accept her does not and should not deter any of us from that realization.

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Ok, I get it. Thanks for clearing that up. U know, I'm pretty new, but I have seen how some posters can be obnoxious. I guess I am just waiting for my "initiation". I still think people have a distorted view of what's normal as far as applications are concerned. Anyone who completes the trifecta, not to mention the entire T-14 track, is an absolute freak! And there aren't that many bona fide freaks around.

booboo wrote:As I am sure you realized, managamy is just an excellent applicant to law school that posts on this forum.

Also, I wasn't noting your previous typo. Rather, I was harping on your idea of phenomenal students. Though I might not know Megan personally, I would like to hope with numbers of her caliber that she, too, would be considered a phenomenal student, and the fact that two of the "holy" trinity did not accept her does not and should not deter any of us from that realization.

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Ok, I get it. Thanks for clearing that up. U know, I'm pretty new, but I have seen how some posters can be obnoxious. I guess I am just waiting for my "initiation". I still think people have a distorted view of what's normal as far as applications are concerned. Anyone who completes the trifecta, not to mention the entire T-14 track, is an absolute freak! And there aren't that many bona fide freaks around.

You can call them freaks if you want, but they're not that rare. Here's one way to look at it: Yale, the most selective law school in the country, accepts approximately 200 applicants a year. Of those 200, there are usually between 100 and 150 who are also accepted by Harvard and Stanford. Over the last 10 years, there have easily been over 1,000 applicants who were accepted by all three. I think this shows, among other things, that your HYS collusion theory is incorrect.